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NIMRODS | Performance Devlog - Every MS counts

24 Jan

Greetings, NIMRODS!

Optimization has been a top priority for us ever since the demo was released. We’ve made a lot of improvements and would like to share an update with you all.

To achieve smooth gameplay at 60 frames per second, each frame must render in 16.67ms or less (conversion is 1000 / 60 FPS = 16.67ms). This is our performance target for low-end machines, including the Steam Deck, which is our target platform for minimum specification (min-spec). The target remains 60 FPS or better, even during intense, end-game scenarios. To make that a reality, we have to optimize every millisecond for performance.

This devlog will outline our plan for performance improvements while ensuring the content isn’t too technical. For those wanting a deeper dive into the technical aspects, we’ll be participating in a few Unity focused livestreams this year. One of them later today on The Hot Path Show with Unity developer & Youtuber, Turbo Makes Games: https://www.youtube.com/live/l-aec7fgtbE

The Journey So Far

When we started developing the demo for NIMRODS, the game was built using Unity’s classic GameObject approach. In Unity, a GameObject is a fundamental building block for making a game, most scripts & components exist on a GameObject. For example, a SpriteRenderer is a component used to display… well Sprites. While using GameObjects and Component’s work and great, they struggle to keep up when working with many thousands of them, especially when applying complex effects (like our projectile modifiers - see below)

With this classic approach we quickly hit performance bottlenecks and it became clear that it wouldn’t scale to the level of chaos we envisioned. The end-game of NIMRODS is designed for your guns to have absolutely crazy combinations with all the unique gun augments stacking with each other.

That’s when we pivoted to Unity’s Data-Oriented Technology Stack (DOTS). DOTS introduced a new paradigm centered on Entities, which are lightweight, data-driven objects optimized for multithreaded environments. Leveraging DOTS and Unity’s Burst Compiler (which generates high-performance low-level code) allowed us to paved a path to significant performance improvements.

In fact, not only did DOTS help us resolve many performance issues from the demo, but it also opened the door to addressing the remaining challenges we’re now tackling.

From GameObjects to Entities

With DOTS, Entities replaced GameObjects for many systems - one of these being Projectiles. The movement & logic of the projectile was now handled in a highly optimized system. This yielded some great performance improvements, but there was still more to gain. While the core data was converted to an Entity-based approach, the visuals still relied on SpriteRenderers and GameObjects - which are not compatible with Unity DOTS.

This was still a significant improvement, as the view became much simpler (the view only needed to follow the entity). However, with thousands of projectile views in play, this approach started to slow down in terms of performance.

To address this, our next iteration had us converting the views to an entirely entity-based graphic approach utilizing a newer feature called Entity Graphics. This change not only reduces work on the GPU but also eliminates the need for systems to manage the GameObject because there are no GameObjects anymore! 🎉

This conversion helps improve the performance of projectiles as well as other game elements that rely on the same view → entity connection.

NIMRODS consist of several core elements:

Projectiles (bullets, lots of bullets, tesla chains, buzz saws, split bullets, rockets, etc)
Modifiers (the bread and butter of the game - what gun augments use. I.e homing modifier, explosion modifier, etc.)
Environment Effects (these are area of effects - like explosions, freeze cloud, land mine explosions, honey effect, etc.)
Status Effects (frozen, stat changes, setting enemies on fire, move speed buff, etc.)
Units (you - the player, enemies, breakables like vines, towers, etc.)
The map (pretty much sprites - a lot of them)

Each element can still be optimized further and there is still much performance work to do.

The Balance

We have players that play from a wide range of devices. From the Steam Deck to high-end PCs with a Threadripper CPU w/ the latest NVIDIA RTX GPU - we’ve seen slowdowns on both. Each issue is not necessarily the same. Some slowdowns on the high end machines have to do with explosions (environment effects) combined with a specific modifier systems (like homing). While low end systems can struggle with time spent rendering (map assets).

Optimizing one area sometimes triggers a chain reaction of changes. For example, improving environment effects might require reworking how modifiers interact to ensure they’re as efficient as possible. It’s a process that takes time, but it’s worth the effort.

The Plan

We’re committed to transparency and don’t want to work in a silo for months without sharing an update. Instead, we’ll roll out incremental updates, each focusing on a specific category of optimizations. This iterative approach ensures steady progress and helps us future proof the game. We will be setting up future public betas related to performance testing.

So with that in mind - if you know of a gun build that causes slowdowns, we want to hear about it! If you have Discord then please post in the #guns_go_brr channel or reply to this Steam post. Consider sharing a screenshot of your build in the Gun Inspect screen. Your feedback is super valuable in helping us target problem areas.

In an upcoming performance update, we’re focusing on optimizing projectiles and map assets by converting them to fully entity-based graphics. This change will not only help rendering on low end PCs but also resolve certain builds that cause a significant slow down on high-end PCs (ie builds that are focused around a lot of projectiles). Our future updates will have performance improvements focused on the other elements like Environment Effects and Units.

The Goal

Our mission is to make NIMRODS capable of supporting the wildest, most chaotic builds imaginable without compromising performance. This not only paves the way for even crazier new gun augments but also helps us long term in expanding to future platforms (ie handhelds, consoles, etc). We’ve been dedicating 50% of our development efforts to performance optimization, with the other half focused on delivering new content (augments, guns, and more) - so do expect a balance of both.

Thank you for your support and patience as we continue improving NIMRODS. Together, we’ll make this game one of the most fun (and performant) games in the genre. ❤️

NIMROD out,
- Kmess

If you haven't already, come join our official Discord server

[discord.com]

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NIMRODS Update | Hotfix 0.4.16

23 Jan

Greetings, NIMRODS!

In today's hotfix, we are addressing a critical performance issue that we identified while working on broader performance improvements. We will discuss these improvements in more detail in an upcoming performance devlog releasing tomorrow. However, this particular bug fix was simple enough to include in a quick hotfix, allowing players to benefit from it while we continue developing a much larger performance patch.

This fix significantly improves performance, particularly for gun builds created later in the game, where a large number of projectiles on screen were causing issues as they moved off-screen.

Changelog

Fixed

Fixed a bug that caused severe performance slowdowns due to off-screen projectiles
Fixed a bug that allowed Target Dummies on the Home Ship to be destroyed

If you haven't already, come join our official Discord server:

[discord.com]

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NIMRODS Status Update + Hotfix | 0.4.15

9 Jan

Greetings, NIMRODS!

We hope you had a wonderful holiday season and a Happy New Year! As we kick off 2025, we want to share an update about what we've been working on behind the scenes.

Our team has been hard at work focusing on performance improvements and exciting content updates. Performance optimization is a time-consuming task, but we want to report that we’re making significant progress. We've already observed some great performance improvements across the board, including on the Steam Deck.

We’re very close to sharing these updates with you, so stay tuned! In the meantime, if you haven’t already, check out our Roadmap to see what’s in store for the future.

Thank you for your patience and continued support. We can't wait to show you what's coming next!

Changelog

Removed

Removed festive decorations

If you haven't already, come join our official Discord server:

[discord.com]

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NIMRODS | Happy Holidays!

19 Dec, 2024

Happy Holidays, NIMRODS!

What a journey it’s been! From the moment our demo went live, we’ve been blown away by the incredible support and passion from this community. Every bit of feedback, every kind word, and every bit of love you’ve shown has fueled us to push further and dream bigger. Together, we’ve achieved so much, and we couldn’t have done it without you.

But this is just the beginning. We’re beyond excited about the future and all the amazing content we have in store for the game. Thank you for being with us every step of the way and let’s make the next chapter even more epic!

What You've Accomplished So Far

Since the launch of Early Access, the NIMRODS community has truly outdone itself! The dedication doesn’t stop there. Your achievements are nothing short of amazing, and we can’t wait to see what you accomplish next. Here’s to an even brighter future.

Thank you for being part of this journey!

Festive Home Ship

As a holiday treat, the Home Ship is bursting with festive cheer! Such as twinkling Christmas lights adorning the walls. Holiday-themed target dummies with their own light displays. And our favorite Santa-hatted Service Droid “Roobie” is spreading cleanliness and holiday cheer!

Winter Sale

NIMRODS: GunCraft Survivor is on sale with a 15% discount till January 2, 2025! 🎄

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2086430/NIMRODS_GunCraft_Survivor

Want to know more about NIMRODS? Come join us on our official Discord server
https://discord.com/invite/mdbCsgnsS7

NIMRODS

NIMRODS Update | Bugfixes and Improvements | 0.4.14

17 Dec, 2024

Greetings, NIMRODS!

We're hard at work creating new content for you all to enjoy (aside from those of us working on R&D to improve performance, which is looking very promising - more word on that soon!) But while you all are waiting on the new content, we thought we'd address a few bugs and quality of life requests you've brought to our attention:

Changelog

Added

The augment slot type is now indicated in the gun upgrade, gun inspect, and the arms dealer screens
Inspecting locked augments in the gun upgrade screen will now tell you how to unlock them
You can now unequip all assigned airdrops at once in the airdrop scheduler by pressing X
A small toast will now appear when a drone levels up displaying what upgrade it has applied to the gun

Change To Drone's Special Power

When a player levels up their Special Power increases immediately and not when they collect the airdrop. Previously, the drone would level up at the same time it took an augment or tuning, only gaining Special Power when it did so. This was fine for most cases, but some players have started doing challenge runs where they never take tunings or never take augments. Even if a player doesn't collect their augment or tuning, they would still get Special Power from leveling up... but the drone made from that run wouldn't, because it previously only got Special Power when it added an augment or tuning.

We've changed it so that instead of just keeping track of when the weapon gained an augment or tuning, we also keep track of when the player leveled up. That way, if a player levels up but doesn't collect their augments or tunings, the drone made from that run will still gain Special Power up to the same level the player did at the same time the player did in the run they crafted the gun.

Other Changes

Effects that cause bullets to explode (Explosive Ammo, Eponymous Nimrod's Barrel, RPG, Hydra Minimissle Swarmer) now stack their areas (not radius) instead of replacing each other
English localization improvements
French localization has drastically been improved

Fixed

Fixed an issue where Special Power was not being calculated correctly while using a gun in the Home Ship
Fixed an issue where the hitsplats spawned by the target dummies in the home ship were displaying incorrect damage numbers
Fixed an issue where Splitter Magazine and Splitter's Eggsac would overwrite each other. They now stack as intended
Fixed an issue where Projectile Damage could scale out of control if two specific augments were taken together
Fixed an issue that caused the Drone Scout ability to give 2.5x more Vision Range than intended
Fixed an issue that prevented the Scavenger and Vandalism missions from correctly detecting completion
Fixed several crashes that could occur

Thank you all so much for the overwhelming support. We won’t rest until NIMRODS is a game you can play forever—because every run should be another masterpiece of absurdity.

If you haven't already, come join our official Discord server:

[discord.com]

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NIMRODS | Early Access Roadmap

6 Dec, 2024

Greetings, NIMRODS!

It’s been a while since we reached out, so we thought we should let you know how things are doing. Now that Thanksgiving is over, we’re working hard to put out some new content for you all:

If you, like us, want more information than can fit in a fancy image, read on as we explain a little bit more about each of these Roadmap items…

New Guns and New Augments

You might notice that there were five Underbarrels you could obtain, but only four of every other slot. This happened because we had an Underbarrel sort of like the Flamethrower but also sort of like the Energy Blaster, and we decided that by separating it into two different Underbarrels, we could fulfill their fantasies better. Still, that leaves us in a weird spot. Why should Underbarrels be the only slot with five options?

So let’s fix that, shall we?

We just finished up the design document for another six augment lines, enough to put a fifth augment option in every slot. It was so cool to work on them, because of how solution-focused we were able to be. When we did the first batch of augments, NIMRODS was hardly a game yet, so all we could do was plan augments that thought would work well together. But now, thanks to you, there’s a whole NIMRODS ecosystem we can examine, and design new augments to fill gaps in the current meta. In particular, you’ll find this batch of augments includes:

Ways to help slow-firing builds by giving them more defensive options and making missing enemies less punishing.
More ways for your drone to use more build types, particularly retaliation builds.
More ways for players to get resources, particularly boss resources.
More tools for a player to collect resources and XP.
Augments designed to combo well with augments that are currently underperforming.

We can’t wait to get these into your hands, so keep an eye out for them during upcoming patches!

Guns? Oh, we did mention guns, didn’t we? We’ve got a lot planned, but for our next chassis, we combed our old brainstorm documents and found a pretty sweet gun that we think will generate quite a buzz, but that’s all we’ll say about it for now.

Ability Upgrades

The character’s abilities are simple to start, but for experienced players, there’s a lot of room there for interesting complexity. Because of that, one thing we’ve been excited to explore is the idea of evolving your abilities to give them more capabilities, providing simplicity for new players but depth for experienced players. When we release this, we’ll also release Vixen’s second ability. It’ll feel familiar to old hands in the genre, but its upgrades will put our own spin on the idea.

New Characters

We have three new characters planned! I know a lot of you have been clamoring for new characters, but we figured that we should take the time to do them right.

Grimm and Vixen are the only two NIMRODS. The three new characters we’ve got planned are new recruits brought in from outside the paramilitary structure the NIMRODS inhabit. Reluctant new recruits. One might even say unwilling new recruits. How does this happen?

These new characters are hidden in the world. If you encounter them you’d better be ready for a fight! If you can defeat them, you’ll have the opportunity to harvest their DNA, bring it back to the gene lab, and produce a clone of them that you can play as, increasing your roster of selectable characters

Relatedly, this is not how Grimm came to be. Grimm’s not a clone. He’s the original. Totally. We promise.

In addition, we have plans for how to further differentiate the characters so they encourage different playstyles so it’ll feel more like you’re playing a different character and less like you’re wearing a different cosmetic skin. More details on that as we get closer!

Performance

We’ve been doing a lot of research and development related to fixing performance bottlenecks in the game. The engine we’re using is providing us with cutting edge tools that few people have ever used (DOTS Entity Graphics) so our fearless programmers have been forging their own way towards a faster game and a higher framerate, trying and testing dozens of different combinations of approaches to see what will buy us the most CPU cycles. The results of our research are looking very encouraging, and certain builds that would tax most computers (*cough plasma bladestorm cough*) are running solidly on our test machines. We can’t wait to get these performance improvements into your hands, but we’ll need to do a lot of testing to make sure our optimizations don’t break everything, so it might be a bit.

Gunporium

We’ve had uncountable requests for some in-game tool to view all the augments you’ve used, and we agree that it’s a great idea. We’re still in the design stages for this one, but our plan is to make a new station in the ship you can go to and see each augment you’ve used so you can check its stats, how it can evolve during your run, what unlocks the upper tiers of the augment, how many times you’ve used it, and other useful information. What information would you like to see about the augments? Let us know in the comments what you think would make this feature most complete for you!

Quality of Life and Bugfixes

It’s always tough to balance bugfixes and minor improvements with content releases. Content excites people, but sometimes it’s the little things that make the biggest difference, so we’re not going to neglect those either. Little touches, like showing what slot an augment will fill when you see it in the upgrade screen, or showing an augment’s upgrade tree in the shop menu, will go a long way towards helping new players understand how the augment system works.

New Biomes

And, of course, the big finale: New biomes.

These are the most challenging things to tackle, because there’s a lot that goes into it. New biomes need new monsters, a new map, new things to find while exploring, new augments to hide in the map, maybe even a new character to find and fight, new genes to discover while in the area, new drop pods to reassemble, a slew of new missions and achievements to complete… There’s a lot that needs to happen all at once for a new biome to be released, and we can’t really release any of it piecemeal. When we do release a biome, it’s going to be a big content drop. These are the largest tasks on our roadmap because they’re so all-encompassing, but I promise the wait will be worth it. We plan to have two more biomes to include before our 1.0 release.

That about sums it up for now. We’ve got other features in the works as well, but we want to wait for them to be a little more mature before we talk about them, so look forward to more news in the coming months!

Thank you all so much for the overwhelming support. We will not rest until NIMRODS is a game you can play forever—because every run should be another masterpiece of absurdity.

If you haven't already, come join our official Discord server

[discord.com]

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NIMRODS | Nominate us for the Steam Awards!

3 Dec, 2024

Greetings, NIMRODS!

If you have been enjoying NIMRODS: GunCraft Survivor so far, consider nominating us for the Steam Awards!

The voting will end on December 4, 10 AM Pacific.

Thank you all so much for the overwhelming support. We won’t rest until NIMRODS is a game you can play forever—because every run should be another masterpiece of absurdity ❤️

NIMRODS

NIMRODS Update | Hotfix 0.4.13

22 Nov, 2024

Greetings, NIMRODS!

Today's hotfix addresses several minor issues, along with a performance issue caused by the Homing augment.

Changelog

Fixed

Fixed an issue where projectiles with homing would target invalid or invulnerable targets
Fixed an issue where the Hard version of Bertha did not count towards the "Eye for an Eye" quest
Fixed an issue where the Hard version of Splitserpent did not count towards the "Splitter Slayer" quest
Fixed an issue where the stats in the Honor Medal Charm's description were displayed in the wrong order
Fixed an issue where the description of the "Yes Sir" mission was inaccurate

[discord.com]

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NIMRODS Update | Quality of Life | 0.4.12

19 Nov, 2024

Greetings, NIMRODS!
We've got an exciting update for you today.

Economy Balance

We've made substantial changes to the economy. In short, nearly all costs have been reduced. Players will now be able to unlock almost everything in the game much earlier. There are still some high-cost targets in more optional systems, such as high-level genes and airdrops, as we still want to reward players with many hours invested. In particular, we wanted players to be able to play with all the new gun chassis much easier, so out of everything that had its price cut, the guns got cut the most. RYS Plasma Spirallers stans rejoice! Also! Players will earn a refund on the difference between the cost of anything purchased before this update to now.

Drone Power

We have observed quite a bit of confusion from newer players referencing the lack of a "metagame" or "meta progression". This seemed very strange to us at first given all of the different unlockables, genes, guns, airdrops, etc, available in NIMRODS. But then we realized that a lot of that stuff is not as accessible until the mid-game. In the early-game, our metagame is something far more organic: Your drone! Your drone's gun "caps out" at the point where you died in the run you crafted the gun, but until it reaches that cap, it typically keeps pace with you, essentially doubling your damage. So let's say a player has a level 10 gun in their drone and goes on a deployment where they reach level 20. Now they have a level 20 gun for their drone and on the next run maybe they can reach level 30! This is a very natural meta progression built by the mechanics of the game in contrast to other metagame systems, like the Genetics system in NIMRODS, which centered around increasing your stats directly.

In fact, we suspect that this metagame is so natural that people aren't realizing it's meta progression at all! Some players associate a "metagame" with a set of numbers that gets higher every run. If they don't see their number getting higher, they're not sure they're making progress.

So what do we do? Simple. We give those players a number that goes up! The drone pedestal is now equipped with an analyzer and has a digit display under it. This will analyze any gun you give your drone and compute a "Drone Power". This is a number that represents a generalized sense of how good a gun is for your drone. The biggest contributing factor to your drone power is the drone's max level, but in addition to that, it also takes into account how quickly you get there. If two guns both get to level 60, but one gun had an early power spike and stays several levels ahead of the other gun until right near the end, it will have a higher drone power than the other gun. Drone power doesn't take into account things like your gun's DPS as it's very situationally dependent, so drone power won't tell you the whole story regarding which gun is better, but it will provide a new unique heuristic to consider!

Tech Stacks Diminishing Returns

We were impressed to see some big-brained plays that got Resource Drop Rate boosted to nearly 50,000%! While we love rewarding game knowledge and the fruits of intense theorycrafting, this was too much even for us. We're buffing Tech Module's Resource Drop Rates on low-performing builds (under 4800 stacks) and toning it down on high performing builds (over 4800 stacks). The drop rate on Tech Module still stacks to infinity, but it'll take a lot more work to get there.

Changelog

Added

The Gun Augment Tree in the Gun Upgrade screen has been overhauled
The Drone station is now equipped with an advanced power analyzer that will compute & display power based on how many upgrades a gun has and how soon it obtained them
A "Disable Miniboss Intro" option has been added to the Gameplay settings tab
When Auto-Aim and Auto-Fire is enabled, you can now hold left-click to overwrite Auto-Aim
Pressing "Y" will now enable Auto-Aim
Pressing "U" will now enable Auto-Fire
The keybind is now displayed in the description of the corresponding setting in the settings menu

Balance

Crit Bonus for Umbral Reaper Sight has been changed from 3.3% -> 13.5%
Damage Bonus for Deadly Sight has been changed from 17% -> 7.5%

Tech Stacks

Resource Drop Rate from Tech Stacks: 0.1%/stack → 0.15%/stack
Diminishing returns now kick in after 2000 tech stacks:
The next 2000 Tech Stacks only count half as much
The next 4000 Tech Stacks only count a quarter as much
The next 8000 Tech Stacks only count an eighth as much (and so on...)

Changed

Round time limit has been increased from 1659 to 1680
Airdrop Bay is now unlocked by defeating Malphor and Drone Bay is now unlocked by defeating Titannus
Gambler Pod is now unlocked by default instead of Smasher Pod when the Airdrop Bay is purchased
Some units no longer take damage until they appear on screen first
Improvements to the Save System for Cloud saving flows
Emerald Bauble renamed to Amethyst Bauble
Localization improvements made to all languages
Chinese (Simplified) localization improvements

Fixed

Fixed an issue where Charrrger fire puddles could instantly kill the player
Fixed an issue with the sequence of the final boss's enrage cycle
Fixed an issue where the "Incoming!" Quest and Achievement had the incorrect target goal. It now requires 100 kills in a single run instead of 1500
Fixed an issue where the Skullspike Grip augment provided more Move Speed than intended
Fixed an issue with the "Headbanger" quest not tracking hard versions of Chargers correctly
Fixed an issue with the "Little Friend" quest not tracking kills from some underbarrels
Fixed an issue where certain quest icons were using the incorrect icon
Fixed an issue where certain glyphs would not appear when using a Switch Pro controller
Fixed an issue with the Adamantite Ore collider
Fixed an issue that could occur when using a Optical Carbine with a Magazine Size of 1
Fixed an issue where the Medic Pod's healing pulse would not properly clear after being picked up
Fixed an issue where Airdrops would sometimes appear invisible
Fixed an issue where Airdrop timeline could skip unslotted airdrops
Fixed an issue where enemy waves would sometimes trigger incorrectly
Fixed an issue with Bombardier Bee's impact radius
Fixed issue where Malphor's thorns could spawn far in front of him while he is enraged
Fixed an issue with the camera on the Home Ship when using wide aspect ratios

Thank you all so much for the overwhelming support. We're dedicated to make this game together with those joining us on this journey!

If you haven't already, come join our official Discord server

[discord.com]

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NIMRODS | Early Access Community Survey

7 Nov, 2024

Greetings, NIMRODS!

We want to hear from YOU!

Your feedback is crucial as we continue shaping the game. We're inviting all players to participate in our latest survey to help us make more informed decisions for future updates. While we can't promise every suggestion will make it into the game, we genuinely value your input and look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Make your voice heard and help us take NIMRODS to the next level!
https://forms.gle/9QDT8FN2wNaeToEr8

Thank you all so much for the overwhelming support. We're dedicated to make this game together with those joining us on this journey!

If you haven't already, come join our official Discord server

[discord.com]

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